Brash, high-rise, colourful and often chaotic, Osaka is a serious rival to Tokyo in the big city stakes and the third largest in Japan. And like the capital, it has some distinctive neighbourhoods with character all their own. The district we called home during our stay, Umeda, is a tangled web of soaring office blocks,…
Tag: Castles and houses
Hiroshima and its legacy
The reason so many of us travel to Hiroshima is obvious – to witness the site where the world’s first atomic bomb was exploded in anger. Around 70,000 people died instantly when it was dropped on 6 August 1945, many thousands more followed in the years after. On our first night in the city after…
Antwerp and its fascinating architecture
Antwerp is a feast for the eyes if, like me, you’re a fan of great architecture. And its bars and restaurants are pretty good too. The Belgian city lies on the River Scheldt, remains a bustling port and has long been at the heart of the diamond trade. It’s a great place to spend a…
Utrecht and a visit to de Haar Castle
Utrecht is the fourth-largest city in the Netherlands, and a joy to visit. It’s full of life, is blessed with a wide range of beautiful buildings and isn’t inundated with [drunk British] tourists. The ancient and atmospheric city centre is built around a network of canals, reminiscent of Amsterdam but without the masses of people…
The historic wool towns of Suffolk
Many of our most historic towns survived intact not because of the efforts of worthy and wealthy citizens, but because their inhabitants were so poor. The argument goes that without the money to improve their properties or to demolish and rebuild in the latest styles, residents effectively left their towns in a kind of architectural…
24 hours in Malaga
Malaga has a reputation for being a jumping off point for holidays elsewhere in Andalusia rather than a destination in itself. But it was bonkers when we visited, full of tourists who’d decided it was worth a day or two of their precious vacations. And while it doesn’t have a wealth of things to see,…
The Alhambra, Granada
The guidebooks tell us that the Alhambra in Granada is one of those sights that just has to be seen at least once. But is it worth the aggravation, worth putting up with the crowds? Is it worth the hype? During our week in Andalusia we had the chance to find out. A mix of…
Exploring Krakow, night and day
You’ve got to love a city when two can eat a hearty meal in a city centre restaurant, consume two beers each and be charged a total of less than £30 for the pleasure. Welcome to Krakow… OK, our choice of eatery wasn’t exactly Michelin-starred but, while Restauracja Polska must have had a particularly unimaginative…
Art and history in Nantes
Tomatoes of all shapes and sizes bulging and bursting with flavour, heads of broccoli larger than any I’ve seen and oysters from all points along the French coast. This can’t be a British supermarket… In fact it’s the Marche de Talensac, one of Nantes’ oldest and biggest markets on a typical Saturday morning. Browsing the…
Greece: A week on the coast at Parga
Greece may be a part of Europe but there are times when it feels like a world apart. Epirus, the region in the country’s north-west, is wild and rugged, remote and peppered with ruins. It’s a land of mountains and broad valleys, lakes, striking bays and cliffs that plunge to the sea. Driving through, it…
An Easter weekend in Palma, Mallorca’s capital
In London the sun was shining, temperatures were hitting new records for an Easter weekend and the newspapers were crowing about it. In Palma, it was cool, drab, drizzly and windy. This was not how it was supposed to be, and my mood was just as gloomy. Perhaps that’s why it took me several days…
Exploring Jodhpur’s mighty Mehrangarh Fort
Set on a massive volcanic outcrop 400ft above the city of Jodhpur, Mehrangarh Fort is unmissable. It’s one of India’s greatest monuments, an imposing complex of palaces and fortifications that would’ve impressed and intimidated the friends and enemies of the ruling family. It was built in the 15th century by Rao Jodha, the then ruler…
A trip to Agra and the Taj Mahal
Agra is dirty, full of litter and shambolic, yet it’s home to the world’s most beautiful building – the Taj Mahal – and a spectacular Mughal-era fort. We couldn’t go all the way to India and not visit Shah Jahan’s monument to love but we almost didn’t make it because our Graham woke on the…
Lebanon: Jeita Grotto and Byblos
Lebanon is big enough to pack a punch, but small enough that we could do the trips without having to switch hotels. In one busy morning we got to see a majestic grotto and an ancient city on the coast. But with the country’s roads making a fairground bumper car ride look polite, there was no…
Cardiff’s castle and shopping arcades
Cardiff lacks tourist attractions. At the top of the minimal list is the much-restored castle, just a few minutes’ walk from our hotel. But it was raining, and raining heavily, so whatever we were going to do on such a drab day was going to involve umbrellas and getting wet. No wonder the streets were…